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RECONSTRUCTION 



FOUR SUNDAY LECTURES 



By 
REV. DR. SAMUEL H. GOLDENSON 



Before The 



Rodef Shalom Congregation 



PITTSBURGH. PA. 



PITTSBURGH, PA. 
NATIONAL PRINTING COMPANY 

1919 






Copyrighted 1919 
'REV. DR. SAMUEL H. GOLDENSON 



OCT 24 [919 



(n)C!,A5(3 5 451 



^V^ 



^JU 



The Meaning of Reconstruction 

NOVEMBER 17, 1918. 



The Scope of Reconstruction 

NOVEMBER 24, 1918. 



The Lines and Guarantee of Reconstructi'on 

DECEMBER 1, 1918. 



Justice— The Goal of Reconstruction 

DECEMBER «. 1918. 



The Meaning of Reconstruction. 



The Meaning of Reconstruction. 



We are on the threshold of a new era, 
an era that will be known to future histor- 
ians as the period of the reconstruction. In 
the same manner as the historians speak of 
the Renaissance, the Reformation, they will 
speak of the Reconstruction. Wherever the 
ward reconstruction will appear in capitals 
without qualification, without an adjective to 
limit it in one way or another, the children 
of the future will know that that particular 
reconstruction refers to the era of this time, 
the period immediately following the Great 
War. And it will be so known not because, 
I take it, that this particular work of recon- 
stituting society follows directly upon the war, 
the most stupendous, the most destructive war 
of all times, but because of the twofold char- 
acter of this particular reconstruction. The 
present attempt to reconstruct the world will 
be distinguished from all others in two ways; 
in its extensive character and in its intensive 

[3] 



RECONSTEUCTION 

nature. Extensively this reconstruction, before 
its impulse will have spent itself, will un- 
doubtedly touch the very uttermost ends of 
the inhabited world. No part of the world, 
however remote, will escape its influence. 
Every continent, every nation, every people 
will be affected by it. The changes that it 
will bring" about will be felt by every nation- 
ality and every tongue. Its force will not be 
spent until the entire human world will in 
some fashion, at least, be made over. That is 
its extensive character. Intensively, too, it 
will be distinguished from all other periods 
of reconstruction in its deliberateness, in its 
self-consciousness, and in its thorough-going 
character. Every reconstruction period in 
former times was more or less without 
thought. It was simply a natural process and 
the term reconstruction applied to it was 
usually adopted by later generations. Later 
generations, later historians, later thinkers be- 
gan to realize the meaning of the former 
period. 

This particular reconstruction differs from 
all the rest in that we are entering upon it 
with a great deal of consciousness, with a 
great deal of deliberate thought and deliber- 

[4] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

ate effort, and that never in the history of the 
world have there been so many men and wo- 
men of so man}^ different persuasions, nation- 
alities, points of view, interests, strata of so- 
ciety thinking of reconstruction. It is this 
fact of the multiplicity of interests and the 
common conviction that some changes must 
be wrought that gives the present reconstruc- 
tive effort its intensive character and makes 
it specially significant. Extensively it covers 
a wide area ; intensively, it takes hold of the 
hearts and minds of men as never before. And 
by reason of these two qualities this particu- 
lar reconstruction will be known as the great, 
the all inclusive and all sincere attempt, I 
hope, to so change the world that the things' 
vre have suffered in recent years we shall not 
suffer again. 

That, then, is the meaning of this recon- 
struction upon the threshold of which you and 
I stand at this time. But just because the 
word has been on the tongue of every think- 
ing citizen of today, just because we take it 
for granted that something will be changed 
in the way of reconstituting society, it is neces- 
sary for you and me to think very clearly 
upon the meaning of what should take place, 

[5] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

in order that we might properly share in the 
direction of the movement. Just because re- 
construction will be an effort in which so many 
of us will participate, so many of us wall be 
expected to cooperate, it is necessar}^ that you 
and I should know definitely and understand 
thoroughly whence the will to reconstruct 
originates, what its meaning is and what are 
its purposes. 

Reconstruction in the mind of the average 
person is usually connected with war only, and 
it is necessary for us to understand this, be- 
cause from this misconception arises many of 
the evils directly or indirectly connected with 
war. Most persons think of reconstruction 
as a period of change that takes place only 
after some war, and indeed there is some rea- 
son for that belief, for historically, reconstruc- 
tion in its more or less conscious quality has 
followed mostly upon wars. History has al- 
ways spoken of great human changes as aris- 
ing from war, and the reason is that history 
has been in earlier days a record of war causes 
and war results. As the earlier historians 
busied themselves with the inter-relations of 
nations as separate and mutually exclusive 
sovereignties and with the acts of dynasties 

[6] 



i 



EECONSTRUCTION 

it was quite natural tiiat wars should, furnish 
the points of demarcation and departure. All 
politics began with war, led up to war and 
ended with war and all the changes were occa- 
sioned by the redistribution of powers made 
necessary by war exigencies or anticipations. 
The periods of universal history have been di- 
vided by certain outstanding wars so that 
quite necessarily reconstruction was thought 
of as connected almost exclusively with war. 

When we regard the past we see that as a 
matter of fact reconstruction of peoples did 
take place after great and important wars. 
If we glance over Greek history we find that 
its period of reconstruction, its period of re- 
birth and culture and a sense of responsibility 
did follow after the great Persian war. The 
fifth and fourth centuries in Athens are the 
centuries of literature and of art. In that 
time the Greeks attempted to change societ.y 
to a more democratic form and endeavored to 
bring about a federation of states and all this 
was prompted by their experiences in their 
conflict with the Persian Empire. 

And when we think of Biblical history, when 
we regard the changes and movements in the 
history of Israel, we see there, too, that war 

[7] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

brought about certain very beneficent results. 
The rise of literary prophecy is unquestion- 
ably due to experiences and threats of war. 
The writings of Amos and Hosea, Micah and 
the first Isaiah were inspired by the things 
that they began to realize through Israel's 
conflict with Assyria. The fine insights of 
Jeremiah and the noble penetration of the 
latter Isaiah were surely informed by the 
spirit bred in the struggle with Babylon, and 
the vision gained of the transcendence of spir- 
itual over material realities, universal over 
national values, was itself the triumph of free 
moral worth, even in a condition of subjection 
to foreign material power. The body of Is- 
rael was exiled but the spirit through this 
very vision remained free to dream of a day 
when righteousness shall triumph and become 
the permanent basis of security and peace. 

In American history the term reconstruction 
is applied to the three or four decades of in- 
tra national readjustment that followed the 
Civil War. There is, therefore, some reason 
for the common belief that war and recon- 
struction go together, for the connection is 
well nigh universal. Yet, there is no justifi- 
cation to assume that because there is a re- 

[81 



EECONSTEUCTION 

lationship between the two that this connec- 
tion is, therefore, an exclusive one, that is, 
that war alone supplies the occasion for recon- 
structing the social order. There is probably 
no greater mistake made about the causes of 
human progress and about the factors of hu- 
man development than this. It is because men 
have so long believed that reconstruction re- 
quires a war as its occasion and justification 
that this particular war has come about. The 
war literature, and we may well add much of 
the peace literature of the Teutonic peoples, 
is permeated with this view. They believed 
that the world cannot be changed, that evolu- 
tion cannot be brought about unless men ex- 
perience a great and consuming war. The 
doctrine of evolution to them was predicated 
primarily upon the fact of struggle. With- 
out a struggle men would remain stationary, 
they would not progress, they would not un- 
derstand the meaning of culture, or civiliza- 
tion or science. It was their belief that char- 
acter itself could not be realized and achieved 
except through a discipline occasioned by ex- 
periences or anticipations of war. To the Ger- 
man then the evils of war were discounted as 
mere incidents in the making of character, the 

[9] 



EECONST RUCTION 

development of culture, arts and sciences. 
Holding such a view, w^ar to them was not 
only inevitable in the process of human devel- 
opment but eminently desirable. 

Now, friends, is it true that reconstruction 
is the one and necessary outcome of war and 
that w^ar is the mother of the arts and sciences, 
of character, and of the virtues that men have 
learned to prize? Is it true that man will not 
move forward unless he be lashed by a war 
whip? What of man's mind, what of his nor- 
mal emotions and w^hat of life itself? Is not 
reconstruction of the verj^ nature of living? 
Reconstruction is a characteristic, an attri- 
bute of living. The very fact of living means 
the capacity and the necessity to change in 
the direction of a more abundant life. There 
is nothing more basic to human life, I might 
say further, nothing more basic to any life 
whatsoever than the need and the power to re- 
construct. The difference between an animate 
and an inanimate being is just in this, that 
when you strike an inanimate object it does 
not strike back of its own accord. It simply 
receives the blow and if in its very nature it 
can resist and remain whole, it does so, and if 
it cannot, it breaks up and tlie parts remain 

[10] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

where they fall. Not thus with a living thing. 
A living thing is an organism and its organic 
character resides in the fact that when some- 
thing happens to it, a kind of self assertive 
resiliency takes place, the power to recupe- 
rate is stirred and the effort is made to rees- 
tablish itself. This is of the wery nature of 
life itself in any organism, not to speak of a 
human being only. All life seeks to restabilize 
itself, to regain power, to withstand obstacles, 
to prevent new difficulties, and to go on in. 
spite of the hindrances that obstruct and often 
because of these very impediments. To rise 
above the thwarting experiences is a quality 
of life itself and certainlj^ of human life. Those 
who say, therefore, that we need a war in or- 
der that we might have the occasion and the 
stimulus to reconstruct society forget the basic 
and most fundamental quality of living. This 
very morning we had a slight occasion for re- 
construction. We rose and found it raining. 
Now rain is an obstacle to some extent. It 
certainly tended to dampen the ardor of some 
to come to services but many of us seemed to 
have overcome this particular hindrance. We 
circumvented the obstacle by using rubbers 
and umbrellas and raincoats. Every effort 

[11] 



KECONSTEUCTION 

that we make, every thought that we think is 
generated by some kind of an impasse, so that 
it is not necessary artificially to create ob- 
stacles, difficulties, and possible disasters in 
order to stir our will to progress and improve- 
ment. The extent of this war and the intense 
horror of it is due largely to this unhappy 
mistake of linking up reconstruction with war 
as its necessary condition. So long as men do 
not think of life itself as giving the ground 
and supplying the problem for reconstruction 
and for progress, so long will they require the 
stimulus of international hatred and enmity 
and belligerence to stir them to discipline 
themselves and so long will they welcome the 
combat in order to furnish the justification of 
changes in society. 

As the individual reconstructs himself daily 
in order to achieve the needs of his life so does 
society as a whole. It, like the individual, is 
organic in character. As in the individual 
every member of the body must coordinate 
with every other and function with the 
view of maintaining the whole, so in society 
every class and interest must regard other 
classes and interests and also what is known 
as the general welfare. Herein we find a still 

[12] 



EECONSTEUCTION 

greater reason for the Heedlessness of war to 
stimulate progress, for after all, society as a 
whole is not altogether like an individual. The 
parts of the body are knit together more close- 
ly and at no time can carry on a separate life, 
while in the social order classes and individ- 
uals have their own purposes, temporarily, 
and at those times, that is, when they pursue 
their private ends in disregard of general well- 
being, there grow up differences and antagon- 
isms. Here then, we have within society al- 
ways the problem of overcoming differences, 
antagonisms and surmounting obstacles. 

Reconstruction then being of the very es- 
sence of life itself and also made more neces- 
sary by the quite natural differences that de- 
velop in human intercourse, what then shall 
we say should be its temper and spirit? How 
shall we think of it? Shall we regard it, as 
so many do, from the standpoint of its literal 
meaning and conceive of it as a mechanical 
process? Is reconstruction merely to build up 
again the structures which by one cause or an- 
other had been destroyed, or shall we view re- 
construction as the readiness to heed to the 
basic yearnings and the attempt to summon 
the latent powers and idealisms of man in or- 

[13] 



EECONSTEUCTION 

der to make life better? There is a profound 
difference between these two points of view. 
There are some who think of reconstruction 
in a literal fashion and accordingly would 
bring back the old conditions, would replace 
them to Avhat they are pleased to say is the 
normal condition of life. The normal condi- 
tion to them seems to be the way things were 
five years ago, — a world divided into a num- 
ber of nations, great and small, one consider- 
ing the other its natural and inevitable enemy 
and the problem for each Avas to assert its 
own sovereignty, by itself if possible, or in 
league with some other nation who stands in 
fear of the same fate through the same chan- 
nels. Insofar as you regard reconstruction 
from this literal, superficial, so-called normal 
standpoint, you are missing the very purpose 
and meaning of this particular reconstruction 
that is about to begin for us. The world will 
not be reconstructed in a way that will satisfy 
a human heart and mind so long as men wish 
to recall the very conditions that have caused 
the suffering and agonies of these last four 
years. The war came upon us because those 
conditions were not normal, that is, they 
were not up to the norm, up to the standard 

[14] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

of the life that human beings should live, 
the life of justice and of truth, of honor and 
mutual respect. The war arose out of abnor- 
mal inter-relationships. Powers were not ad- 
justed righteously. Ideas were not under- 
stood and digested. Such noble and beneficent 
doctrines as evolution were misconceived and 
consciously misinterpreted in order to create 
anticipatory justifications for suspicion and 
hatred and aggression. The notion that a cer- 
tain people had a monopoly of culture and the 
sole right and obligation to impose such cul- 
ture upon the rest of the world could not but 
issue in war, and to their misguided thinking 
such a war was a necessary clearing process 
in the upbuilding of a better society. It gave 
them, therefore, a sense of virtue and the be- 
lief that they were engaged in a most laudable 
and holy cause. Such were some of the ideas 
that operated in the minds of men in the years 
before the war. Though the Teutonic people 
were, of course, most obsessed of these notions, 
yet who would say that no other nation did 
not possess some of these ideas in those days, 
at any rate, the belief that war is necessary 
as a disciplinary experience and as a stimulus 
to a more masculine moral life. 

[15] 



KECONSTEUCTION 

Over and over again I hear men say that 
this is going to be a hard time. We are 
faced by hard conditions, and when one 
inquires why it will be hard, we are told that 
it will be so difficult to get things back to the 
normal condition. I hope it will be hard. I 
hope it will never be brought back to that con- 
dition. In order to satisfy the ideals that have 
been stirred and in order to answer to the so- 
called compensations that have been generated 
during the war, the present reconstruction will 
have to be along the lines of the causes that 
have brought the world disaster. It will have 
to be preventive of the same factors and the 
same underlying motives that have operated 
to bring it about. It seems simple to say this, 
it seems obvious and yet how many there are, 
how many in this very country of enlightment, 
who shrug their shoulders and turn away from 
such a program which they claim human na- 
ture cannot achieve. They are even impatient 
with our President, who, they say, would make 
society a one grand and impossible Utopia. 
They do not like so much talk about righteous- 
ness and certainly not of mercy. They want 
to bring back the world with its old inequali- 
ties, with that old conception of individual- 

[16] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

ism predicated upon poAver. The righteous- 
ness that is informed with the spirit of mercy 
is a righteousness they cannot trust. They 
prefer to put their confidence in a righteous- 
ness that is indignant and a justice that is 
punitive. They only have one passion and 
that is to punish the enemy. Then automati- 
cally the world will right itself, it will come 
back to its past status and all will be well. 

I say as long as we think in these terms we 
miss the great opportunities, the deepest sat- 
isfactions of our lives. Let me remind you 
that in order that reconstruction be genuine 
it will have to be of the same nature of the 
earliest reconstruction that you and I as -Jews 
know. It may possibly have never occurred 
to you that the ten commandments that I read 
to 3^ou this morning seems to be the first, the 
most conscious and deliberate attempt made 
in the world's history to reconstitute life. 
Else what is the meaning of the first sentence 
of the ten commandments? Why should the 
Lord have insisted that the Children of Israel 
should know that He it was who brought them 
out of the land of Egypt. ^'I am the Lord thy 
God who brought thee out of the land of 
Egypt." The purpose of this reminder, it 

[17] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

seems, was to make them recall their hard lot, 
their sufferings among the Egyptians and the 
great war that they had to wage. ''Because 
you, the Children of Israel/' the thought seems 
to run, "have known hardship, known slavery, 
knoAvn injustice, known hatred, known ex- 
ploitation, therefore, thou shalt not steal, thou 
shalt not murder, thou shalt not covet," etc. 
The ten commandments were given to Is- 
rael, not that Israel might in its turn give 
them to Egypt only, but that it should take 
heed of them among themselves and also teach 
them to the rest of the world. This basic law 
of Israel aims to reconstruct society by puri- 
fying most of the primary relationships among 
men and even extends to the animal world. 
In the observance of the Sabbath the law- 
giver does not stop with the man and his 
family only but goes on to insist that provis- 
ion must be made even for the ox and the ass. 
The special explicitness with which the com- 
mandment ''Thou shalt not covet" is given 
marks the realization on the part of the an- 
cient teacher. How often is this seen; how 
many of the ills of society are rooted in it! 
Agsression and exploitation are nothing more 

[18] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

than national covetousness justified by so- 
called culture and civilization. 

So then, friends, that to me is the meaning 
of reconstruction. I pray that you will think 
more carefully about the era that we are now 
entering. We Jews especially, who through- 
out our own historj^ have suffered so often by 
reason of the prevalence of false notions and 
ideas, should take to heart the most recent 
experiences of mankind and seek to contrib- 
ute out of the storehouse of our spiritual treas- 
ures the purposes and ideals that shall help 
men to reconstruct society along the lines laid 
down by our sages and lawgivers and proph- 
ets. It is for us now to redeem the professions 
that we have made throughout the centuries, — 
that we have been preserved for the spiritual 
end of teaching the doctrine of the one God 
and of uniting all mankind in His name, by 
emphasizing and reemphasizing only those 
principles that unite and those beliefs that 
are based upon a righteousness rooted in genu- 
ine and sympathetic understanding of the 
forces and problems of life. 



[19] 



The Scope of Reconstruction. 



The Scope of Reconstruction. 



In- our talk last week we viewed Reconstruc- 
tion from the standpoint of its meaning. We 
inquired into its essential significance and 
sought to point out that Reconstruction is not 
a process that follows exclusively upon wars, 
but that it is of the very essence of life itself. 
Life, in any form, from the most rudimentary 
to the most complex phase is reconstructive 
in character. When life ceases to move in the 
direction of acquiring ever greater strength 
and poise, the organism in Avhich it resides 
ceases to live. Life is self -recovery ; it is a 
self-renewing process. In social life the prin- 
cipal problem always is to restabilize, to incor- 
porate within itself the experiences of former 
times in such a way as to meet the newer situ- 
ations or perhaps to create them. The func- 
tion of intelligence is to become auxiliary to 
this central process hy throwing its light upon 
experiences that may affect this movement 
in some favorable fashion. Intelligence aims 

[23] 



EECOXSTEUCTION 

-to separate in all complex situations tlie things 
that are evil from the things that are good, 
discarding the evil influences and promoting 
and furthering the useful ones. 

This morning we shall view the problem of 
Reconstruction from the standpoint of its 
scope. Where shall we say should Reconstruc- 
tion begin and what are its natural limits? 
The obvious answer is that as life is of one 
piece, so the reconstructive process should 
cover all and every phase of human endeavor. 
To limit the process is to stop short at some 
point artificially created and at that point 
there is sure to be generated a new crop of 
problems to overcome in the future. The out- 
standing illustration in the minds of all of us 
at this time, I believe, is in the disasters that 
have befallen Germany in attempting to re- 
construct and to develop its own life by set- 
ting arbitrary limits to human interests and 
by assuming a monopoly upon culture and 
even upon the right to life. 

The chief crime on the part of Germany was 
to conceive of its life as privileged and sepa- 
rate from the life of all other nations. It is 
this very conception that led it to use the forci- 
ble and savage methods to establish these ex- 

[24] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

elusive ends. May we not find in this a sugges- 
tion and a warning with regard to the limits 
of Reconstruction? As Germany's sin against 
humanity was due to the attempt to construct 
a national life in disregard of the interests of 
other nations, so it seems quite obvious that 
the Reconstruction, forced hy the disaster that 
Germany brought upon itself and upon other 
peoples, must not be allowed to follow the 
same lines of exclusively national interests 
and purposes. In a word Reconstruction, to 
be effective, healing and far-reaching, must be 
international in character. 

There are, however, certain difficulties in 
getting men and women to appreciate the 
necessarily international scope of social and 
political readjustment. These difficulties do 
not altogether spring from deliberate and in- 
tentional rejection of the claims of other peo- 
ples. There is unfortunately something in the 
very habits of our thinking that makes us 
provincial. All our thinking is in response 
to personal needs and wants and these arise 
within specific areas of experience and rela- 
tionship. It is because of these limited situa- 
tions out of which thought arises that we ac- 
quire the habits of regarding things in terms 

[25] 



EE CONSTRUCTION 

of personal interests, of family claims, of pro- 
vincial purposes. It requires, therefore, a 
very great effort on the part of a man at any 
time to transcend and to overcome- the habits 
of mind engendered by private and personal 
experiences. It is, indeed, hard to think in- 
ternationally because few of us have had in- 
terests that called for international relation- 
ships. The difficulty is to overcome a very 
natural psychological conservatism. One does 
not willingly and consciously try to be con- 
servative; one is so by reason of attachment 
to limited experiences and circumscribed in- 
terests. What is needed is to make us realize 
the scope of our own interests, how they be- 
come secure by understanding; that they are 
interpenetrated with the interests of others. 
We need to be educated in the knowledge of 
the expansiveness of human interests and thus 
to take the broader and graduated view of 
the problems that seem to be exclusi\ely our 
own. 

This education is not easy at first because 
it means a breaking a"way from the natural 
habits of thought and also because it demands 
the yielding up of so-called advantages and 
cherished ideas and ideals. It is easier to re- 

[26 1 



EECONSTRUCTION 

main at the bottom of the mountain than to 
rise up to its pinnacle, but when one has risen 
to the top the view is greater, the vistas are 
larger and the horizon opens out new points 
of contact between heaven and earth. But 
unhappily most of us live in the valleys. The 
very mountains, upon the top of which lie 
freedom and peace, hedge us around, obstruct 
our view and paralj^ze our wills. We usually 
live upon the level of what we choose to call 
"everyday facts," hardly realizing that these 
facts are kept stale and commonplace largely 
by keeping out of them the fresh experiences 
and invigorating life of new and open con- 
tacts with other worlds. Thus it is that the 
great difficult}^ to international thinking lies 
in our disposition to take a personal or pro- 
vincial view of the claims and problems of life. 
Another reason why we seem to be unable 
to think internationally is found in the fact 
that organized religion, as it finds itsolf ex- 
pressed in the church theology, has for the 
most part emphasized personal morals and 
relationships. Religion itself which should 
have supplied the major stimulus to inclusive 
and over-personal thinking has often rein- 
forced private and provincial outlooks. For- 

[27] 



KECONSTEUCTION 

tunately, we Jews have been free from this 
limiting and cramping religious standpoint. 
But yet, our life has been influenced by the 
general trend and control of things in the 
Western world where the chief business of 
religion has been that of soul saving. Organ- 
ized and official life has after all been in the 
hands of those who subscribe to the dominant 
religion. That religion has for ages regarded 
the person in his private capacity and con- 
ducted a limited business with him. He in turn 
acquired the habit of thinking of religion only 
in terms of his personal soul life. The things 
that engaged his attention on the common days 
of the week were made secular and acquired 
a secondary place in his religious life, if any 
place at all. The force of the church was spent 
in keeping the first day of the week sacred to 
the Lord and when Monday arrived the puplit 
and the pews had exhausted their religious 
energies. Thus it is that these days were left 
to shift for themselves. It is for this reason 
that religion has been so impotent in this great 
crisis in the world's life. Had religion taught 
mankind to think socially instead of personally 
and about everyday affairs without divorcing 
life into two mutually unrelated parts, the 

[28] 



EECONSTEUCTION 

secular and the sacred, the world catastrophe 
would hardly have come upon us and if it had 
the religious teachers and instrumentalities 
would have exercised some influence in bring- 
ing about a recognition of the enormity of the 
crime and of putting an end to it much sooner. 
It is because religion has specialized upon 
man's soul rather than applied itself to the 
solution of the problems of man's moral and 
social life in its entirety that there have grown 
up so many different standards of ethics, each 
one necessarily partial and limited and con- 
trolling in its own field. In the fifteenth cen- 
tury, when the world was dominated by the 
church much more than today, Machiavelli 
wrote his famous and very influential book 
on "The Prince." These lectures were de- 
signed to train the young man in the art of 
statecraft and in the principles of diplomacy. 
This book is the direct result of the separa- 
tion of church and state morality, of divorcing 
personal from national ethics. Disaster, in- 
trigue and indirection are openly and frankly 
preached by this instructor as permissible, if 
not desirable methods of dealing between na- 
tions. He conceived that the nation did not 
have a soul as the individual has and that, 

[29] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

therefore, the morals that applied to a soul- 
possesshig person did not need to apply 
to a soulless entity. This teacher but ex- 
pressed what must have been felt by a great 
many, — that the state is a law unto itself; 
that methods of conducting its business and 
especially when that business touched the in- 
terests of other states, are different from those 
rules of conduct evolved in personal life. It 
was quite possible, under the religious con- 
ceptions that operated in the minds of men in 
those days, to be a perfectly respectable ruler 
through the arts of chicanery and intrigue, 
and at the same time a loyal and pious man. 
Official and institutionalized religion required 
certain observances at stated times. These 
being discharged, the church had no further 
interest. It was a simple conception of relig- 
ion based upon equally simple legalistic notions, 
of ideas of well-defined obligations within 
a restricted area. It is for this reason that so 
many find it difficult to carry over their moral 
notions into international questions and 
claims. Religion has not taught the major 
portion of humanity to think of the need of 
applying spiritual principles to international 



30] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

bounclar.Y lines, economic interdependences, 
freedom of the seas and the like. 

The negative notion of the soulless charac- 
ter of the state would not be so dangerous 
were it not connected with the mischievous 
conception of its self-sufficiency. In the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth century there was de- 
veloped the idea of the state as a gigantic 
entity boasting of its independent life and dis- 
claiming any obligations that would in the re- 
motest manner tend to curtail its right to con- 
duct its own affairs. This right to absolute 
non-interference is the doctrine of state sov- 
ereignty Avhich turns out to be nothing more 
than individualism applied to state life. The 
state is to have unlimited power in its own do- 
mains and absolute freedom from interference 
from those outside of the state. In a \ery in- 
teresting article which came to me recently, 
written b}^ H. G. Wells, he gives us vvhat he 
considers the leading obstacle to international- 
ism. He calls it ''the great power theory." 
What he seems to mean by ''the great power 
theory" is state sovereignty predicated upon 
power, — power to the utmost, power self-suf- 
ficient and without responsibility to anything 
outside of itself. Few of us realize that all 

[31] 



RECONSTEUCTION 

this lies behind the word power when asso- 
ciated with nations. We often speak of great 
nations as great powers, but rarely appreciate 
that when we use this term in this eulogistic 
manner, we indicate our acceptance of the 
doctrine that the aim of the state is to possess 
as much power as possible and to use it as a 
means of self-advancement. I doubt whether 
any of us would speak of an individual as a 
power except in connection with some definite 
sphere. We speak of a human being as a 
power here or a power there, in this walk of 
life or in that, but never without some quali- 
fication. But when it comes to a state we are 
perfectly ready to accord it power, without 
questioning its use or need. 

When a human being acts through power 
merely he remains an individual, but when he 
uses that same power out of a sense of respon- 
sibility^, he thereby achieves personality. An 
individuality, acting through sheer power, em- 
phasizes merely the things whereby he differs 
and always keeps others aloof. A personality 
how^ever, acting purposefully and responsibly, 
attracts others towards him and includes them 
in some form of mutual life. So long, there- 
fore, as we think of a nation in terms of mere 

[32] 



KECONSTRUCTION 

power and exalt its influence on the basis of 
its physical force, so long will national life 
in itself differ in moral quality from the life of 
men and women in all other forms of associa- 
tion. 

Then, there is an economic reason why some 
in America find themselves lukewarm to Re- 
construction upon an international scale. 
Those of you who have pondered at all on re- 
cent events will have noticed, I am sure, that 
there is growing up in our midst two well de- 
fined and differing attitudes to the problems 
of Reconstruction. There is the internation- 
ally minded man who reacts to idealism and 
there is also the nationalistic individual whose 
outlook is limited by private and personal in- 
terests. There is no reason for us to blink the 
fact this morning. No problem is ever solved 
by disregarding it. 

On the one hand, I find in the life of Ameri- 
ca the men who think of this country from the 
standpoint of its physical and material re- 
sources. They believe in America not so much 
as a place where certain institutions and ideals 
are to be developed, but rather as a place 
where there are stored up the necessary and 
sufficient means of livelihood for a certain num- 

[33] 



E E C O N S T R U C T I O N 

ber of human beings. It is a hard headed point 
of view. It is the view of the man who sees 
no reason why he should risk any of the things 
that may prejudice his interests when there 
is really no need for such a speculative at- 
tempt. It is the eminently practical stand- 
point. This land is bountiful; it is rich; its 
mineral and vegetable resources are without 
limit. Why enter into an international scheme 
when there is really no need for it! It is the 
speech of unmoralized riches. This is nothing 
more than economic selfishness. It is material- 
ism, justifjring a stay-at-home attitude to 
world problems. 

Then, too, there is the so-called patriotic 
obstacle to internationalism. From time im- 
memorial, the sentiment of patriotism has had 
more or less of a negative and exclusive flavor. 
The average patriotic speech is not satisfied 
to inculcate love of institutions and ideals of 
one's own country, but somehow by implica- 
tion tends to reflect upon other nations. It 
is rare when a patriotic address does not 
abound in superlative boasts. Our young have 
been brought up in this notion of the superi- 
ority of all things American, but the real mis- 
chief in this kind of patriotic self-exaltation 

[34 1 



KECONSTKUCTION 

lies in the fact that often but a very fine line 
divides a sense of superiority from exclusive- 
ness. 

Because many of us have been brought up 
in this notion of shallow patriotism, we fear 
international points of view and arrangements. 
We seem to confuse internationalism with cos- 
mopolitanism. A cosmopolitan is supposed to 
be a person who loves every nation alike, but 
the peculiar thing about him is that he tends 
to love the other nations more than his own. 
The cosmopolitan has no genuine lo3^alty. He 
is perpetually on the go, if not physically, 
certainly mentally. He never stays in one 
place long enough to become naturalized, that 
is, to develop certain sentiments, afi:*ections 
and obligations toward his home land. Of 
course, when we think of internationalism in 
this way it becomes to us a kind of free love 
which we quite naturallj^ fear. The mischief 
in free love is not that an individual has a 
capacious heart but a fickle one. A man who 
cannot develop a sufficient love for a person 
to make him a reliable and responsible agent 
in the upbuilding and the development of hu- 
man life is certainly not a safe spouse. But 
internationalism does not mean fickleness or 

[35] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

interchangeableness of national loyalties. It 
in no way negates a patriotic sentiment. On 
the contrary, it purifies and ennobles one's 
patriotism. The internationally minded also 
have a jealous regard for their own country. 
The standpoint, however, is one of service, of 
function in the economy of the world rather 
than of self aggrandizement and of acquisi- 
tion of power or of glory for one's own na- 
tion. When one so loves his nation as never 
to want it in the wrong in any conflict, that 
is internationalism. ''My country, right or 
wrong," is a nice sounding phrase, but it is 
finer to say and to feel that my country is right, 
and still finer to do everything possible to 
keep the country in the right. There is, there- 
fore, a nationalism of internationalism and 
that is the nationalism of service, of righteous- 
ness and of love of humanity as a whole. 

What now are some of the direct and posi- 
tive arguments for internationalism? It may 
be well to start with an appeal to facts. It is 
important sometimes to turn to actualities. 
What are the facts of life? What are the facts 
of human experience with reference to the 
sphere in which life itself is cast ? Let us look 
over the world and see what we find there. 

[36] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

There are differences of seasons, differences 
of climate. Seasons and climate combine to 
produce certain things that men, in the course 
of time learn to use and to enjoy. There is 
no land upon the face of the earth, not even 
America, that produces all the goods that men 
enjoy daily. 

When you and I were children we played 
many guessing games and the commonest one 
played the world over, I think, is the game 
in which the company sent a person out of the 
room and then decided upon a given object 
wiiich that person upon his return was to 
guess. The object chosen to test the imagina- 
tion was, as you will recall, as remote and ab- 
struse as the joint minds could seize upon. 
But we remember, too, that even as children 
we learned the process of elimination. We 
learned to classify all the objects of nature in 
two or three great divisions. We used 
to begin questioning the compam^ in this 
fashion: "Does the object belong in the vege- 
table kingdom: does it belong in the mineral 
kingdom; does it belong in the animal king- 
dom?" By this means we narrowed the field 
of things to the fewest general classes. 

[37] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

Now, where is the vegetable kingdom or 
the mineral kingdom or the animal kingdom? 
Does America or England or France or Italy 
have a monopoly upon any one of these king- 
doms? Even as children we knew that each 
one of these kingdoms is a cross section of ele- 
ments that are distributed the world over; 
that there is no part on the face of the earth 
that has not some share in these kingdoms. 
These are facts, and facts that testified, even 
to us as children, that no country exhausts 
any department of the earth's values. In our 
guessing games we learned as children to use 
our physical geography of the entire earth 
in our search for the object in the minds of 
our playmates. In those early days we caught 
a glimpse of the internationalism of the 
world's goods. 

When you go home this noon you will par- 
take of your average Sunday meal, and if you 
would take the time to investigate into the 
origin of the things that you eat and the 
utensils you use, you will see, I think, that 
it is actually an international banquet that is 
being served you. This banquet is produced 
hj the international forces and agencies. One 
dish comes from one country ; another from 

[38 1 



KECONSTEUCTION 

the second; another from the third and still 
another from a fourth and so on. As with 
this simple meal, so with almost every single 
thing that we enjoy in the world. Every ar- 
ticle is a composite whose elements have been 
gathered from all the four corners of the 
earth. When these things were brought to- 
gether does not matter. The building up pro- 
cess may have taken a longer or a shorter 
time. The fact remains that the thing is a 
world product. That is what I mean when I 
call your attention to an actuality. In the face 
of that, how absurd is nationalistic arrogance ! 
How do you oi' I know what tomorrow may 
bring forth and what land or what hidden 
spot of the earth may not bring forth some 
new value, some undreamed elixir of life. Ra- 
dium was discovered a short time ago. Was 
it found in Pittsburgh? How would you like 
to be cut off from the use of radium just be- 
cause it is not a Pittsburgh product? Ridicu- 
lous, you say! It is not any more ridiculous 
than many another notion that comes from 
our inappreciation of the interdependence of 
life and of values. 

As the physical thing or the article of food 
is the product of international action, so and 

[39] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

to a greater degree, perhaps, is our intellectual 
food. If you read any essay with a view of 
tracing the thoughts and sentiments of the 
writer, where would you find the limits of his 
sources? Does the essay possess any cultural 
value, — then it must itself be the product of 
cultural development and when did that be- 
gin and who was the originator? If the es- 
say is written in English, who would dare to 
claim that the ideas are all English, or Ameri- 
can, and if not all English, what part? Take 
any history of civilization. What do we find 
at the outset? Does it deal with a particular 
country? It may, but only to point out a par- 
ticular contribution, but that contribution it- 
self is the outcome of contact with other peo- 
ples. Thus it is that history is never finished ; 
it is always written and rewritten from the 
standpoint of a deeper appreciation of sources 
and of mutual influence. 

If we were asked to name a dozen of the 
leading personalities of the world, the masters 
of thought, the men who have in some out- 
standing way changed the direction of human 
thinking, who would these men be? Would 
they be all Americans, all Englishmen, all 
Frenchmen? Would we not name such men 

[40] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

as Plato and Aristotle, Greeks; Moses and 
Isaiah, Jews ; Galilei, an Italian ; Copernicus, 
a Pole; Descartes and Rousseau, Frenchmen; 
Kant and Hegel, Germans; Hobbes and Locke, 
Englishmen ; Emerson and Lincoln, Americans. 
All these men together have played important 
parts in the production of what we call human 
culture or civilization. Every one of these 
men wrote with due reference to his predeces- 
sors and without arbitrarily limiting the 
sources of his information or inspiration. For 
that reason, these men became great and are 
today our teachers and yet we keep on prat- 
ing of national achievements as if they were 
really exclusively national. Is not this after 
all the great mistake that Germany made? 
It is, indeed, hard to understand how a nation 
so cultivated and so thoroughly cognizant of 
the interdependent nature of human culture 
could substitute its own exclusive brand, 
spelled with a *'K" for that which is inter- 
human and international. The only explana- 
tion is that this substitution was artificially 
superinduced on the people by the nationalis- 
tic arrogance of the Prussian state. 

Now, as to morals! Are morals national in 
character? Is there such a thing as American 

[41] 



EECONSTEUCTION 

righteousness, English truth, French justice, 
Italian fairness or Russian honor? We need 
only to attach these labels to the moral cate- 
gories to show the absurdity of such notions. 
When a man seeks to be righteous, what hap- 
pens to him ? Does he not in that very attempt 
transcend his own private and exclusive self 
and arise to such an idea as will enable him 
to comprehend the interests of others as well 
as his own? Is not his righteousness marked 
by this very ability to treat the other person 
as if he were part of himself? Every moral 
endeavor leads to the fusion of selves, that 
is, to such realization of mutual interests as 
will enable the two selves to remain in har- 
mony as if they were one. This is what we 
mean when we say that nothing is settled per- 
manently unless it is settled right, for the 
wrong settlement will cry out until a new ad- 
justment will be made. The fact is, and this 
must not be lost sight of, that a wrong set- 
tlement means a settlement in which human 
beings are made to suffer unjustly and it is 
these human beings who will and must for- 
ever fight until the world does them justice. 
And what of religion? Is religion national 
or international? By religion I do not mean 

[42 1 



Rlil CONSTRUCTION 

institutionalized theologies. I mean the senti- 
ment that flows directly from the conscious- 
ness of God and seeks to apply that conscious- 
ness to human life and problems. I read to 
you for our Scripture reading today from the 
Book of Malaehi. When it comes to the great 
crises of life, when it comes to the attempt to 
solve important human situations, we are 
happy that we can go back to Scripture for 
inspiration and guidance Said Malaehi more 
than two thousand years ago "Have we not 
all one Father? Hath not one God created 
us? Why then does one man deal treacher- 
ously with his neighbor?" When religion is 
referred to God as its inspirer and not to some 
ecclesiastical order, some church practice or 
teaching, some particular creed, then invari- 
ably and inevitably the outcome is a vision of 
human interdependence, of brotherhood, of 
relationship of country with country, of man 
with man no matter what the conditions of 
origin, of language, or of nationality. If the 
religious teachers of the world could rise to 
this conception of the oneness of God as the 
sanction of and compulsion to moral life, then 
religion would play a really important part 
in the life of mankind, instead of carrying on 

[43] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

a shadowy existence amid such stern and bit- 
ter realities. 

These, friends, are the thoughts that have 
come to me about internationalism. I sought 
to give you the obstacles and to explain them 
away and to point out at the same time the 
permanent grounds and arguments for inter- 
national mindedness. How shall we bring 
this about? It is one thing to be able to dis- 
cuss why things should be such and such, but 
unhappily it is another thing to call them into 
being. The problem is usually one of will. 
If men really want to become international 
in their conceptions and interests, they must 
learn to pay the price and that is to sink per- 
sonal and private and exclusive ends. We 
must learn to think of America as a great in- 
strument, as a function, as a servant, even as 
Israel began more than twenty-five hundred 
years ago to think of itself as a servant, as a 
kingdom of Priests. If America wishes ta 
rise to that conception of responsible steward- 
ship, America can and will find the way and 
will lead, I believe. She is doing it today and 
through a man who, through his knowledge 
of history and through his native instincts 
for what is just and fair and righteous, is 

[44] 



KECONSTRUCTION 

pointing to a grander and nobler patriotism, — 
patriotism of democracy, patriotism of service, 
of the love of American Ideals. But let us 
realize that no one man, however high his 
station or great his power, can achieve what 
in the nature of things must lie within the 
power of an entire nation. So then, let each 
one of us learn to think of internationalism as 
a religion, as a moral necessity, as something 
that will save mankind and redeem us all and 
make life safe and secure for all time. 



45 J 



The Lines and Guarantee 
of Reconstruction. 



The Lines and Guarantee 
of Reconstruction. 



It is our purpose this morning to discuss 
Reconstruction from the standpoint of the 
lines and guarantees that shall make it stable, 
effectual and progressive. In our first talk 
we warned against regarding Reconstruction 
too literally. "We referred particularly to the 
first syllable of the word, the syllable which 
means a return to or a reversion to some for- 
mer ways or conditions. To attempt to recon- 
struct society so as to regain the status quo 
before the war would be a too literal interpre- 
tation cf our problem and would lead to the 
reestablishment of those very conditions out 
of which, in part at least, the war has arisen. 

This morning I wish to give voice to another 
warning and that is that we should not regard 
reconstruction too literally from the stand- 
point of the meaning of the word "con- 
struct." The word belongs to an order of ex- 
perience where men deal with physical things 

[49] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

as fixed material for the production of definite 
instrumentalities. These physical objects are 
employed as means of creating the things de- 
sired and these desired agencies or tools or 
articles can be used only after they are com- 
pletely manufactured. It is very unwise, 
quite impractical and often altogether impos- 
sible to live in a building that has not yet 
been completely erected. We make a building 
and after it is finished we equip it and move 
into it. We manufacture a vehicle, as a wagon 
or an automobile ; we make an instrument, as 
a violin or a piano, but would not think of 
using these before their essential parts have 
been joined and organized in such a fashion 
as to enable them to function for our purpose. 
Social reconstruction, however, is not quite 
that kind of manufacture. It does not belong 
in the world of industry where processes re- 
quire substantial completion before any use 
or enjoyment of the object is possible. It is 
necessary to have this in mind for unless we 
do certain misunderstandings are bound to 
arise. History abounds in illustrations of the 
misunderstandings that arise from the confu- 
sion of reconstruction that belongs in the 
physical and material world with that that 

[50] 



KECONSTRUCTION 

operates in the social and spiritual spheres. 
The outstanding example of this confusion 
lies behind orthodox socialism which for two 
score of years has taught the doctrine that 
the reconstruction of the world must wait for 
a thorough-going and wholesale establishment 
of a new state based upon the complete ac- 
ceptance and incorporation of its doctrines. 
This thought of theirs led quite inevitably to 
the complementary doctrine of the necessity 
of a sudden social revolution as a means of 
bringing this new order about. Since the new 
regime was not to be brought about piecemeal 
and by easy and gradual changes, there was 
really no other way by which it could be 
achieved than by a sudden transformation of 
society. This accounts for the fact that many 
socialists have shown little or no interest in 
the improvements that have been gradually 
made, and have often gone so far as to oppose 
these betterments; their reason evidently be- 
ing that these improvements tend to stay and 
to allay the desire for total and radical 
changes. 

There is another reason why men tend to 
postpone reconstruction. Strangely enough 
that reason finds its roots in an altogether dif- 

[51] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

ferent sphere of human interest. While the 
postponement that we have just spoken of 
arises from superimposing upon the social 
world experiences of an industrial nature, ex- 
periences taken from the materialistic world, 
the postponement that I now have in mind 
arises from so-called spiritual and religious 
conceptions. There aie many men who believe 
in reconstruction as the rest of us do, but they 
hold that it does not lie within man's nat- 
ural powers to bring it about. They believe 
in outside agencies that must operate by the 
intervention of supernatural powers. In a 
word, that theory is millenial in character. 
This Utopian reconstruction is to come, to be 
sure, but the date is a thousand years hence. 
Man in the present is not worthy of such a 
Kingdom of Heaven; he is not good enough; 
his life has not merited such a paradise and 
moreover he is not equal to the task of bring- 
ing it about. And if he were today to be 
ushered into it, he would not be intelligent 
enough to appreciate it. Hence, why not let 
well enough alone and wait. 

Is it not strange that the writer of Deuter- 
onomy, whose observations we read this morn- 
ing, seemed to have foreseen this attempt on 

[52] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

the part of man to postpone the ethical and 
spiritual reconstitution of society on the 
ground of his natural human limitations. I 
must make this confession. The other lectures 
in this series were introduced by a scriptural 
reading and this whole week I wondered where 
in the Bible there was anything that would 
give a Biblical justification and a basis for im- 
mediate and direct reconstruction along demo- 
cratic lines. There is much about justice in 
the Bible, but where in the Bible is there an 
appeal to democratic power and responsibil- 
ity? But suddenly it occurred to me that in 
the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy there is a 
most direct and pertinent discussion of the 
very point that we have in mind. You remem- 
ber that God spoke to the children of Israel 
about personal responsibility and about the 
possibility that lies in the life of each man to 
control his own destiny. ''I call heaven and 
earth to witness against you this day that I 
have set before thee life and death, the bless- 
ing and the curse, therefore choose life that 
thou mayest live." It is for you, O man, to 
determine which path you will choose. An- 
ticipating, however, that men might argue, as 
do the latter day opponents of the new social 

[53] 



RECONSTKUCTION 

order, the scriptural speaker warns his 
hearers : 

"For this commandment which I com- 
mand thee this day, it is not too hard for 
thee, neither is it far off. It is not in 
heaven, that thou shouldest say: 'Who 
shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it 
unto us, and make us to hear it, that we 
may do it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, 
that thou shouldest say: 'Who shall go 
over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, 
and make us to hear it, that we m.ay do 
it?' But the word is very nigh unto thee, 
in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou 
mayest do it." 

Here we have the anti-millenial theory of 
social and individual reconstruction. The law 
of God is not in heaven, it is not beyond the 
seas, it requires no definite lapse of time or some 
specially appointed intermediary but it is in 
the heart of every man and woman to under- 
stand and to obey. "The word of the Lord," 
said the scriptural writer, "is very nigh unto 
thee ; in thy mouth and in thy heart that 
tliou mayest do it." This is the very basis of 
democracy which believes in the capacity of 
the average man to appreciate finer values and 
to realize his own personal responsibility in 
the creation and the preservation of them. 

[54] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

Reconstruction, then, is to take place all the 
while. One need not wait for a millenium to 
enjoy any of the fruits that can and should be 
created by the inherent goodness and generosit}^ 
of the common man. The fruits are always and 
immediately the result of every simple attempt 
to change the world and to make it better 
and finer. There is no man who puts forth the 
slightest effort to bring more beauty or truth 
or happiness in the world that does not by so 
much enrich life and reconstruct it to that 
degree. Of course, if there are more men who 
engage their energies in serious efforts to make 
life better and to understand more clearly the 
issues and the problems of life, the more 
quickly will there be brought about greater, 
more far-reaching and more abiding improve- 
ments, but the fact is that progressive and re- 
constructive changes can be brought about at 
any time and through every person. 

Still certain general lines must be observed, 
if we would make the process effectual and 
sound. In general we shall gather these prin- 
ciples under the single term of "Democracy," 
but let me say at the outset that democracy is a 
much misunderstood term. Men generally re- 
gard it as a word that belongs primarily, if 

[55] 



RECONSTBUCTION 

not exclusively, in the field of politics or goy- 
emment. To many it signifies a theory of gov- 
ernment as opposed to that which is known as 
autocrac}^ We think of democracy in con- 
nection with monarchy, autocracy and oli- 
garchy and assume that all that is necessary to 
bring about a democratic state of society is to 
overthrow the other forms of political control. 
From this standpoint democracy is conceived 
as a residual state that automatically follows 
upon the rejection of the others. 

Democracy, however, is more than that. It 
is a positive and an affirmative factor in the 
upbuilding of new and finer relationships be- 
tAveen man and man It is a religion; it is a 
faith in human beings; it is a belief that man 
and the world stand in a relationship that is 
ethical in character. To me it seems that the 
first fundamental basis for democracy is in 
the conviction that the earth is the common 
possession of the human family. The world is 
the inheritance of mankind. I know no one 
else upon earth who could claim a better title 
to the world and its goods than man. Man's 
title to it is based upon his belief in the Crea- 
tor, his striving to realize the will of the Crea- 
tor and his ability to appreciate the purposes 

[561 



KECONSTEUCTION 

and the values of created things. ''The earth 
is mine and the fulness thereof" is an insistence 
which, to the Jewish consciousness, spells an 
ethical warning that men should not regard it 
as the private and irresponsible possession of 
particular individuals. 

When we think of the earth as the sum-total 
of values created by man in his long struggle 
with its indeterminate powers and capacities 
evolved by him, then we feel all the more that 
this earth is the possession of the entire human 
family. The earth is plastic. We cannnot tell 
one day what on the next day we will find it 
capable of and who will be the finder. Our 
forefathers would find the world changed to- 
day and we shall find it much changed a gen- 
eration hence. A richer world will greet our 
children and grand-children and as men learn 
to cooperate more and to coordinate their 
efforts, human progress will grow ever more 
swiftly and truly. 

In insisting upon laying the world open to 
the action of many minds, we do not mean to 
imply that the important thing is in the fact 
of the numher of minds. We do not treat of 
human minds numerically, that is, from the 
standpoint of quantities. We do not think of 

[57] 



EE CONSTRUCTION 

the world as a fixed mass whose weight cannot 
be carried or moved by a given number and, 
therefore, demands additional muscular energy 
to move it, just as we add more horsepower in 
moving heavy boulders or beams. The im- 
portant thing about many minds is that they 
are different minds, and that their difference 
in quality tends to bring out different values 
in the world. This, then, is an additional 
ground for democracy. Just as the external 
world itself is in part an undisclosed region of 
values, so within human life there lie hidden 
differences of abilities, of outlooks, of purposes 
and all these are needed to make experience 
rich, stimulating, interesting and satisfying. 
When we realize the need and the value of 
human differences, we arrive at the last and 
most basic ground for democracy. It is for 
every one of us, therefore, to put faith in the sin- 
cerity, to trust in the intelligence and morality 
of the average human being to produce some- 
thing and to add something to the sum total 
of human values. Democracy is a belief in the 
capacity of the average normal man or woman 
to contribute to the goods of life. If we have 
no such belief, then we can entertain no demo- 
cratic ideal. There is nothing that so enriches 

[58] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

life as to believe that one does not possess a 
monopoly of truth or of knowledge, of sin- 
cerity, of generosity, of idealism; that these 
virtues are shared by others and that if the 
world of men and women were given the right- 
ful opportunity, they would themselves be 
able to achieve the same standard of excel- 
lence. 

What, now, are these principles in their re- 
lation to the world that is to be reconstructed? 
Remember that the first thought of democracy 
is that the whole world is the common posses- 
sion of every one of us and because there are 
diverse possibilities and interests we need an 
orderly conduct of affairs in order that we 
might be able to bring about the finest and 
most varied results. This orderly conduct of 
the world should be made possible by a govern- 
ment capable of appreciating the manifold 
values that lie dormant all about us. It is be- 
cause of our common interest in this common 
world, enriched by diverse points of view and 
purposes and outlooks that we must determine 
upon certain orderl}^ and laAvful ways of con- 
duct. But these rules and methods of conduct, 
to be effectual and to achieve their purposes, 
must be based upon the intelligent will and 

[59] 



EECONSTEUCTION 

the consent of all those engaged in the common 
enterprise. What would you think of a society 
that invited you to become a member or ex- 
pected you to subscribe to its purposes and to 
further its life when, at the same time, it con- 
ducted its affairs out of your sight and in 
secret? In the simplest organization of our 
day, we have what is known as the reading of 
the minutes of previous meetings. What is thb 
meaning of this practice? Is it not simply an 
expression of the belief that members who arc 
associated in a common undertaking and are 
expected to discharge duties common to them 
all are entitled to complete and correct know- 
ledge of all the things that pertain to the life 
of the society? And yet such a simple thing, a 
rule practiced in the most insignificant of as- 
sociations, is rarely observed sufficiently in 
national life and almost never in interna- 
tional relationships. The first condition of an 
orderly and intelligent life in the world, 
whether it be national or international, is to 
overcome secrecy in the conduct of governmen- 
tal affairs. The very essence of democratic 
practice and security for its continuance lies 
in open discussion and free determination of 
the modes of life and action of the people. 

[60] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

No democracy is possible where there is se- 
crecy. Secrecy has always been the hand- 
maiden of crime, deceit and selfishness. A 
man is rarely eager to keep in secrecy the 
purposes that are generous and helpful, unsel- 
fish and honorable. The only rightful motives 
for secrecy are modesty and humility, but 
these motives certainly do not call for secrecy 
when our conduct is militating against the 
well-being of others. Whenever men are im- 
patient with methods that are open and free 
and seek rather indirection, we may be sure 
that it is not a virtue that they are hiding, 
that it is not a matter of truth and of right- 
eousness that is being kept from the people. 
It is always something that will not bear the 
light of day. Society cannot be reconstructed 
aright so long as men resort to secrecy in the 
arrangement of the social order. 

In our country we have found that whenever 
a crisis arose, a great conflict sprang up be- 
tween the parties that dominate our govern- 
ment or when a new high purpose was gen- 
erated that it inevitably resulted in investi- 
gations that disclosed secrets and in disgorging 
ill-gotten gains or unfair advantages. The 
publication of contributions to political parties 

[611 



EECONSTRUCTION 

was a notable example. We felt that when this 
law passed that there was a genuine triumph 
over one of the obstacles that stood in the way 
of democratic control of political situations. 
We felt^ and rightly so, that so long as contri- 
butions were allowed to be made to any amount 
and in secret that somehow the well springs of 
democracy were being poisoned and we knew 
that the only safeguard against it was to let 
the public know who the benefactors were of 
our parties and of our leaders. 

Closely allied to the need of open methods of 
governmental action is the requisite of free 
speech. This is equally fundamental. If we 
believe, as we ought, that the average man is 
intelligent and is upright, why then, should 
we not be willing to give him a free oppor- 
tunity to speak his thoughts about political 
affairs and governmental purposes? There is 
no belief in a man unless one has faith in his 
intelligence and in his integrity and there is 
no surer way of showing that one entertains 
such a belief than to give a man a respectful 
hearing. 

Not only is free speech necessary as a med- 
ium for intelligence, but it is also required as 
a stimulus and a determining influence in the 

[62] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

development of thought. Speech is an inter- 
course of thought between persons and in the 
process of expression one either developes one 's 
ideas or finds them inadequate. All of this is 
certainly important if we would have rational 
and purposeful social relationships. But you 
ask : * ' Are there any limits to the freedom of 
speech? Shall a man be given absolute free- 
dom to say whatever he has in his mind at 
any time and under any conditions?" Cer- 
tainly not! There is nothing in the world 
that has absolute sway. All the forces and 
powers and factors in life operate under given 
conditions and have their limits. There are, 
therefore, certain natural boundaries to free 
speech also. A library is a storehouse of the 
fruits of intelligence and is designed to dis- 
seminate knowledge and truth. But even 
there, speech has no unlimited sway. What we 
limit in this case, is not, of course, the content 
of speech, but the manner. We object to any 
speech when it becomes so noisy as to be a 
disturbance. The limits are set by the im- 
portance of the things to which the library is 
dedicated. It is necessary for us to read and 
think and consequently it is important that we 
must be free from interruption. In a word, we 

[63] 



RECONSTKUCTION 

should say that free speech may be curtailed 
whenever either the physical fact of speaking 
or the ideas expressed disturb men in their 
task of creating values that contemplate gen- 
eral well-being. The significant value of free 
speech is that it is a means of determining and 
of furthering worthful lines of action. When, 
however, men have come to the conclusion and 
have decided upon a given line of action, then 
such free speech as will interfere with the ful- 
fillment of the object is irresponsible speech 
and bound to be injurious. Before the war it 
was necessary and right that we should have 
had all the freedom of discussion possible 
about the advisability of entering into the war. 
Having decided deliberately and officially to 
enter the war, the only discussion that there- 
after became pertinent was that which had to 
do with the successful and speedy termination 
of the war. For once having entered the war 
sacrifices were beginning to be made ; under- 
takings of very serious character were set in 
motion and great disasters would have come to 
us and to the world if suddenly a breaking in 
our efforts and a cessation in our endeavors 
had taken place. Loyalty changes with con- 
ditions. Before the war one's loyalty should 

[64] 



KECONSTEUCTION 

have prompted the free use and complete 
devotion of one's thoughts and energies to 
attain a proper attitude to the question of 
national duty. During the war, entered 
into by regulated and ordered authority, 
loyalty should have expressed itself in 
obedience to the organized will and personal 
contributions to the successful outcome. Now 
that the war is over, the restraints upon free 
speech must be removed, particularly since the 
reconstructive process demands above every- 
thing else the joint mentality and idealism of 
the entire people. The forums of discussion 
must be opened ; the columns of the press free, 
for only an idea can counteract an idea. The 
policeman's club may be able to silence the 
tongue but it usually drives the thought in- 
ward to become possessed b}^ the person with 
greater tenacity and to be believed in with 
greater fervor. The result is that the idea 
so repressed ceases to be entertained as a pure 
idea on the basis of its intrinsic value but be- 
gins to foment through hatred and bitterness 
and finally explodes in some destructive fash- 
ion. 

Often in dealing with our children we forget 
this simple truth about the ways of intelligence 

[65] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

and the life of ideas. li we happen to have a 
child whose mind is restless, interrogative, 
original, we treat it as if it were possessed by 
some devilish bent We exert authority and 
pressure. Little do we realize that we are 
simply driving the thought inward and con- 
vincing the child of the impotence of the adult 
to meet his thought squarely. We force the 
boy or girl to seek life in the byways, in in- 
direct and devious channels and sooner or 
later our child will come out of these hidden 
regions with a crop of notions whose alarming 
and disquieting character will startle and stag- 
ger us, little realizing that these are in great 
part the work of our own hands. 

Democracy means self-determination. It 
does not mean determination of a person from 
the outside. There is something in every man 
which is much deeper and wiser than the 
knowledge any other man or any number of 
men may be able to have about him. Generally 
speaking, we know our interests better than 
others can possibly know them. Our conver- 
sation is after all a sheer guessing of what is 
in the minds and hearts of the other. So that 
self-determination is a surer way and means of 

[G6] 



KECONSTRUCTION 

self-fulfillmeDt. The best description of a 
thing is its own self. 

In order to guarantee that reconstruction 
shall follow along these lines of democratic con- 
trol there is one thing necessary above every- 
thing else and that is to make education as 
wide and as diversified as possible. Democracy 
is at once the result of education and its cause. 
Give a man the opportunity to do anything 
whatsoever and the doing is a means of educa- 
tion and development. Man learns by doing; 
man discovers himself by doing and the fear 
that some have that this or that group is not 
capable of self-government is, I suspect, born 
of a wish rather than of a conviction. There 
are, indeed, great differences between the few 
superior intelligents and the many of average 
endowments. But among the many the differ- 
ences are not so great as to justify the as- 
sumption that one section of the many is al- 
together unfit for self-government while anoth- 
er is. These are but mere prejudices and can 
easily be overcome by a little direct and honest 
thinking and by the application of educative 
methods, not only to others, but to our own 
selves. 

[67] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

ThiS; friends, is indeed a great project and 
an important enterprise. The aim of recon- 
structing society in a manner that shall de- 
velop the individual as an important and re- 
sponsible factor in the common life is the 
grandest ideal that men have ever set before 
them. Let none of us say the thing is too diffi- 
cult, the matter is too hard. Let us again 
think of the warning of our ancient scriptural 
reader when he said: ''For this commandment 
which I command thee this day is not too hard, 
neither is it far off. It is not in heaven re- 
quiring some intermediary to bring it to us 
ready made, fully developed, but it is within 
our own hearts and minds. It is very nigh 
unto everyone of us and we need only our 
wills and our minds to brine: it about." 



[68 1 



Justice — 
The Goal of Reconstruction 



RECONSTRUCTION 



Justice— 
The Goal of Reconstruction. 



Thus far we have considered the problem of 
Reconstruction from three standpoints, — first, 
its meaning, then its scope, and lastly its lines 
or method. Our purpose this morning- is to 
discuss the goal. What is its object ; what does 
it aim to achieve? Of all the phases of recon- 
struction, this is perhaps the most difficult to 
discuss. It offers difficulties for two reasons, — 
first of all it is always hard to determine in 
concrete fashion any human goal of an ideal 
nature. Life changes and in the very changes 
there are modifications of the purpose toward 
which it moves. Life is manifold and its diver- 
sified character renders it impossible to be 
fixed in representation or in idealization. 
There are many points of view and many in- 
terests. These are constantly shifted and by 
contact with life acquire new significance and 
ever assume new character. To envisage an 
ideal, therefore, as a fixed goal is in itself to 

[711 



RECONSTRUCTION 

negate certain of the essential elements of life 
itself. Life breaks through what seems final 
and fixed ; it bursts through the rocks and sets 
at naught the mass and weight of all obstruct- 
ing and cramping finalities. 

It is difficult, moreover, to advocate any 
ideal goal because men generally want to hear 
the discussion only from the standpoint of 
their own preconceived notions and prepos- 
sessions. The diversities of human character 
and the varieties of interests become conscious 
and deliberate factors in the determination 
of life's progress. It may be that because our 
readers and listeners have their own preju- 
dices concerning the problems under discus- 
sion that the writers and speakers tend to 
choose the abstract method of dealing with 
them. Not only is the abstract method forced 
upon us by the varied situations and manifold 
differences that obtain in human experience, 
but it enables us to satisfy some one or other 
since the word in the abstract is capable of 
many interpretations. It is more hazardous 
to make one's thought concrete and to give 
a personal application to the actual conditions 
of life than to allow the idea to remain sus- 
pended in the air. But despite the difficulty, 

[72] 



KECONSTEUCTION 

I beg of you to bear with me in my feeble ef- 
fort to answer this supreme question, namely, 
what is the goal of reconstruction? After I 
put to m3^self this question I kept thinking and 
thinking and then came to the conclusion that 
I could not name the goal by any better term 
than the fine old comprehensive word in morals 
and ethics, particularly the one that has so 
often engaged the attention of the Jewish law- 
givers and prophets and sages and that is 
Justice. 

This morning I wish to discuss, if I may, 
some of the implications of justice. And even 
as I give voice to my purpose I find myself 
beset at the very outset with very great diffi- 
culties. For after all justice, too, is one of 
those abstract terms. It has been coined out 
of the manifold experiences, struggles, hopes 
and yearnings of mankind. To define it in a 
fixed manner is not only impossible but if it 
could be done would defeat our very purpose. 
Yet some concrete representation of it must 
be given in order that we shall know at least 
the kind of thought and activity that would 
lead to a condition of life that we would be 
apt to describe as just. 

I know that many of you are not satisfied 

[73] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

with such a hazy statement of our purpose. 
I know that you look for a very definite de- 
scription of what justice is, but, unfortunately, 
that is quite impossible. Certainly we cannot 
delineate it in a manner that would satisfy 
every one of us in the same way as a descrip- 
tion of some visible entity enables us to recog- 
nize it under any and all conditions. If you 
ask me what a book is, I make bold to say that 
I could give a fairly adequate definition of it. 
If I said that it is a number of sheets of paper 
bound together for the purpose of writing or 
printing, no one would seriously doubt that 
that fairly represents that object. Such a defi- 
nition one could give to any child who had 
learned the meaning of the words "paper, 
bound, writing and printing." But if you wish 
a definition of Justice in such a way that you 
will be able to recognize it in a complex situ- 
ation of life with the same certainty as you 
recognize a book or a table or a chair, I fear 
you will be doomed to disappointment. 

Very recently a young person came to my 
study greatly perturbed and anxious about 
a situation that was developing in the family. 
Hardly had the young woman taken her seat 
before she uttered forth these words : * ' Before 

f 74. ] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

anything else, doctor, what is duty?" I could 
not but smile at the question. I saw that the 
young lady was troubled. I was eager to be 
of assistance but I knew how helpless I was 
to solve her problem from the standpoint in- 
dicated by her first question. I said to her: 
*'What if I told you what duty is; how would 
that help you? Suppose I defined for you that 
duty is to do what one ought to do. Would 
you be ready to go forth and apply that defini- 
tion to the problem that is confronting you? 
Would you know what to do? Am I not re- 
peating the same idea in other words, the dif- 
ference being that I am substituting the word 
ought for duty. But what ought one do? The 
answer is duty. We can forever keep moving 
in this verbal circle and never come out of it 
into the actual situation which has created 
the desire to know what ought one to do. 
What is one's duty? The point that my ques- 
tioner was really troubled about was not to 
find a definition of duty but to learn what in 
her troubled situation was the proper thing 
to do. Having told me the conditions and cir- 
cumstances I was able to indicate what to me 
seemed her duty toward those dependent upon 
her. 

[75] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

In the same manner men seek to arrive at 
the meaning of justice by inquiring in some 
abstract fashion what it indicates. To such 
an inquiry the most common answer is that 
justice is when one gives a man what is his 
due. That seems quite an adequate concep- 
tion but it is as formal as the definition of 
duty that we have just spoken of. It creates 
for us a similar circle in which our thought 
revolves without getting us out into the world 
of life and action. Justice is giving one what 
is his due. What is his due? The definition 
itself gives us no hints and no helps. The 
inadequacy of such a treatment of justice is 
especially realized when one thinks of the 
manner in which the problem of justice is 
treated in the world today. When we think 
of the discussions that are going on with ref- 
erence to a just reconstruction of the world, 
we find that this abstract notion of justice 
seems to be operating in the minds of men to 
their confusion. They take it for granted that 
all other wants are determined in this world 
of fixed relationships and that the only thing 
that is left is simply to decide upon the things 
that are due one another. The discussion it- 
self takes place betAveen two sides. On the 

[76] 



RECONSTEUCTION 

one hand there are those who are blessed with 
the world's goods and are quite satisfied with 
the conditions of life. They find no fault 
with the status quo. On the other hand there 
are those to whom life has not been so gener- 
ous, whose lot is not satisfactory, who desire 
changes, — changes real and vital. Thus the 
conflict rages between these two parties. Now, 
if there are no other standards, conceptions 
and materials upon which one or the other of 
these sides or both could predicate their think- 
ing, how could they ever hope to come to- 
gether upon some satisfactory solution of the 
problem of justice? Those that are satisfied 
with the world fall back upon fixed arrange- 
ments of the social order and seek to determine 
what is due for the other class by the aid of 
these political and economic principles which 
they regard as final. To them, what is due 
the masses is really nothing more than what 
they have been receiving through the opera- 
tion of these fixed laws and principles of the 
industrial and commercial world. The answer 
that comes to them is very, very simple. It 
is ready-to-hand for them. It comes out in 
their thinking as an automatic and mechanical 
result. 

[77] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

I cannot but think that this conception is 
embodied in the classic picture of Justice 
which every one of us has seen at one time or 
another. You have all seen the statue of Jus- 
tice in which the figure of a woman with stern, 
serious mien and solemn countenance is sitting 
and holding a pair of scales in her hands. Her 
eyes are blind-folded in order that she may 
not be distracted or influenced by any consid- 
erations that Avould turn her aside from her 
main object which is to mete out to each party 
exact justice. While the purpose of having 
one's eyes shut in determining the things that 
are due, is to make certain unprejudiced and 
impartial judgment, yet I cannot but feel that 
in the main the conception is too mechanical. 
It conceives the act of determining justice as 
one of "meting out," that is, measurement. 
As all processes of measurement take place 
by the aid of fixed rules and weights and lines, 
so this act of assessment, too, is made possible 
by fixed values and weights. Insofar, there- 
fore, as one uses fixed objects and weights 
upon a scale that operates freely and truly 
and, moreover, does not have any personal in- 
terest in the parties to the dispute, there is 
no reason for keeping one's eyes open to watch 

[78] 



E E C N S T R TT C T I O N 

the process. In fact the business of weighing 
seems fairer in the hands of a blind-folded 
person. 

In the conflict that is going on between the 
two major parties that are trying to rearrange 
the social order so that a more just distribu- 
tion of the world's goods shall be achieved, 
there is an unfortunate tendency to resort to 
the mechanical conception of justice portrayed 
in this picture. The assumption seems to be 
that we do have unquestioned and unquestion- 
able weights and measurements, principles 
and methods of determining the things that 
are fair and just for every party. Those that 
are pleased with the world as they find it 
quite naturally appeal to the fixed modes of 
conduct in the industrial, social and political 
world that have enabled them to achieve their 
measure of success or to inherit from their 
forbearers some of the world's treasures or 
advantages which they enjoy. Their point of 
view is contractual in character. They refer 
always to conventions and modes and laws as 
they are and demand that all adjustment be 
made with reference to their fixed and pre^ 
determined character. 

Those that are discontented, however, will 

[79] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

not have justice meted out to them by this 
method of taking for granted that the laws 
and the conventions and the principles that 
have operated in former days are to remain 
fixed for all time. They question these very 
weights and measurements that are used in the 
process of assessment. They feel the need of 
finer principles, of laws that shall take into 
account the newer world. They demand meth- 
ods that shall be elastic enough to adjust 
themselves to more humane purposes and 
ideals. 

We see, therefore, how shadowy and formal 
the notion of justice is which conceives it as 
the mere giving of what is one's due and 
which seeks to determine the question by a re- 
sort to methods which obtain only in the physi- 
cal and mechanical world. The problem of 
justice is not that of sheer weighing; it is 
rather how to secure an open mind for the 
study of human deserts. By an open mind we 
do not mean one that shall be neutral and dis- 
interested, but capable of ever fresher in- 
sights into human conditions, problems, needs 
and ideals. 

While, therefore, I find myself unable to 
define justice in the same manner as I would 

[80] 



KECONSTKUCTION 

define a physical and material object, yet I 
may be able to do a much more important 
thing for our purpose and that is to describe 
something of its method and its spirit. What 
we are all interested in above everything else 
is to arrive at justice, and if we can ascertain 
some of the processes and methods of proced- 
ure that may lead us towards our desired goal, 
that is after all our chief, if not our sole pur- 
pose. 

Justice is that action that follows when a 
free and fresh intelligence, plus a sympathetic 
imagination, plus a moral will are applied to the 
problems of life and human inter-relationships. 
It is a mouthful to say. It seems complex and 
requires a good deal in the background. But 
justice is a good deal. It is the grand, if not 
the supreme ideal of human life and no such 
goal could be reached by any other method 
than by the consecration of our noblest quali- 
ties, essential powers and endowments. 

We are viewing justice in our statement 
not as anything fixed, but as an outcome of 
certain desirable and appropriate methods of 
thinking and feeling. Given the right feeling 
and the right thinking and justice is the ine- 
vitable result. We are, therefore, interested 

[81] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

primarily in going behind the thing to that 
which makes it possible and sure to make it 
what it is and what it ought to be. We are 
giving so to speak, the ingredients. Having 
these, the article of food is made certain. The 
first ingredient is a free and fresh intelli- 
gence. By a free intelligence I mean the ca- 
pacity to use one's own mind freshly, that is, 
to see things as if they were altogether new 
and through the perspective of ideals that are 
uncontaminated and unadulterated by preju- 
dices, prepossessions and foregone conclusions. 
I mean the ability to think anew and to per- 
ceive new values and to grasp hidden impli- 
cations in those situations of life that for the 
most part have seemed commonplace and fixed, 
if not altogether beyond question. Let me 
illustrate what I mean definitely. 

In the economic world, in the spheres of com- 
merce and industry, men conduct their affairs by 
the aid of many principles. Those of you who 
have studied economics surely recall some of 
the simple laws, and the merchants among us 
surely know that one of the commonest rules 
of commerce that has been invoked for many 
generations as a sound guide for success, ' ' Buy 
in the cheapest market and sell in the dear- 

[82] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

est." That seems sane as a method of busi- 
ness; it is fine and excellent when one can fol- 
low it and is sure to lead to success. There is 
nothing in this statement to indicate that one 
should be interested in the question as to why 
certain markets are cheaper than others. 
What makes a market cheap does not fall 
within the sphere of interest of the one Avho is 
simply buying and selling merchandise. If he 
is forced to answer at all, he will invoke an- 
other economic fetish and that is supply and 
demand, and if you ask him what regulates 
supply and demand, whether behind it are 
human needs or capacities that determine the 
things to be produced he will hardly un- 
derstand, or he will have ready to hand a 
third ideal which seems to fit with his scheme 
of things better than an independent inquiry 
into human purposes and needs. It is compe- 
tition. All this gives us some of the principal 
pillars of the economic structure. They seem 
adequate and, indeed, have led to success on 
the part of many men. In many ways these 
principles have been the means of developing 
the resources of nature and the capabilities of 
individuals, but justice is interested in some- 
thing finer. Its primary passion is for human 

[83] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

beings and when one seeks to apply a free in- 
telligence with a view of attaining justice to 
these principles of industry and commerce, one 
cannot but find that they hide behind them, 
if they do not positively create, some of the 
causes of the maladjustment from which great 
masses of men are suffering. To buy in the 
cheapest market and sell in the dearest seems 
wise and is practical so long as you deal with 
things, but when one finds that this commer- 
cial maxim is made to apply to human beings 
whose labor is the only hold they have upon 
the world for their means if sustenance, then 
the iniquity of the principle becomes thorough- 
ly patent. No justice is possible between man 
and man so long as one man looks upon another 
as a thing or a tool. We can talk about princi- 
ples and methods and purposes and ideals from 
now till doomsday, but as long as such a con- 
ception of human beings prevails, all these 
high-sounding terms are so much verbiage. 
You and I know perfectly well that here in 
this free America of ours the same notion of 
labor as a commodity has been entertained for 
many years. The industries of America have 
scoured the nooks and corners of Europe for 
cheap labor; brought men and women over as 

[841 



RECONSTRUCTION 

cattle and exploited them as all tools and 
things are exploited. All the while the justi- 
fication has been found in economic principles 
and laws, forces and what not. 

Every year with the exception of very re- 
cent times, we witness armies of men and wo- 
men seeking employment, that is, a means by 
which to sustain their lives, and the explana- 
tion for this phenomenon is found in supply 
and demand. Perhaps this principle would 
not be as iniquitous if it really Avere allowed 
to operate freely, but who does not know that 
supply and demand are artificially and arbi- 
trarily created? The result is that not only 
are human beings treated as things, but they 
have not even the advantage of the unob- 
structed operation of the principles and laws 
under which they are so regarded. 

Competition, we are told, is the life of trade. 
It is the method and stimulus of the develop- 
ment of things and persons. It is urged that 
we must have it as a condition of progress 
and of the development of human beings. 
Those who believe in free competition offer the 
greatest opposition to any conscious and delib- 
erate I'eadjustment of society. Anything that 
would interfere with the free action of these 

[85] 



EECONSTKUCTION 

economic principles is to them socialistic. 
Ask them what is their chief objection to 
socialism and they will say that it is not 
in accordance with human nature. Social- 
ism, they claim, would make human beings 
alike. If you would arrange the social 
order so that everybody would get the same 
opportunities and the same allotment of earth's 
treasures, it would take but a very short time 
before differences would again appear and 
classifications of those who have and those who 
have not would spring up. That is their con- 
tention and it is no doubt based upon actual 
facts. But I am interested in pointing out that 
one cannot hold two contrarj^ opinions at the 
same time. If it is true, as it undoubtedly is, 
that human endowments and capacities and 
wants differ, then, we cannot in such a world 
demand a free and untrammeled competition, 
that is, if we would have the world humane 
and just. There must be regulations and these 
regulations must be based upon these very 
inequalities in life. Suppose as we left this 
temple this morning and on the way to our 
homes we came upon a scene where a great 
big boy of eighteen or twenty was fighting 
with a bo3^ of ten or twelve, what would we 

[8G] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

find our natural instinct to be? Would we 
not say to this big boy, ''Why not take a 
boy of 3^our size?" And if this boy did not 
desist who would not feel perfectly justified 
to take sides with the little fellow? That is 
the natural instinct of justice. We do not 
like to see unequals in a free and unregulated 
conflict and contest. We want the game so 
played that both sides will have as we say ''a 
fighting chance" of success. 

Now, take this very simple instinct of jus- 
tice into the industrial and commercial world 
and see how very infrequently it finds exempli- 
fication. Everywhere the powerful seem un- 
ashamed to contest with the weak. Great com- 
binations have been built up by the mere act 
of swallowing up the little ones. No wonder 
that the greatest exponents of unrestrained 
industrial and commercial life are the success- 
ful survivors in this struggle for existence. 
The law of the jungle suits them perfectly. 
What is needed in the industrial world is the 
application therein of very simple experi- 
ences had in every family. Those of us who 
are fortunate enough to have children and who 
observe them know how rarely it is that we 
find even one's own children possessed with 

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EECONSTKUCTION 

equal strength, — physical, mental or moral. 
We need not be told by any scheme of eco- 
nomics that men and women are not equal. 
Every mother feels it, every father knows it. 
What do the average parents do when they see 
the difference between their offspring? How 
anxious they are for the weak child and as 
soon as they perceive the weaknesses in their 
children, how often they preach to the others 
of the family to be at the side of the w^eak 
one in order to protect him. Moreover, they 
seek to make such provisions as lie within 
their own power directly to make up for 
the deficiencies of nature. Would any normal 
parent, seeing these differences of ability and 
of energy, of health, mentality and moral 
strength among the children, have them com- 
pete freely as if they all could have an equal 
chance? And yet in the face of what is the 
most common knowledge to human beings, 
knowledge attained in every home, men dare 
to attempt to order life in the industries and 
commerce along lines of irresponsible and mer- 
ciless competition. What we need in this 
world of ours is to learn to bring into the 
streets and market places the lessons and the 
experiences taught us in our homes. We 

[88] 



KECONSTRUCTION 

should strive to make the virtues of the home 
the virtues of the street, the shop, the court 
room, the office, the halls of state and of gov- 
ernment. 

The second ingredient is sympathetic imagi- 
nation. It is the imagination shot through 
vi^ith the sympathies of the heart. The psalm- 
ist speaks of the understanding heart, not the 
intellect as a machine that grinds out thoughts 
and ideas, logical entities but the intellect that 
is informed with emotions, sentiments and 
ideal purposes. Sympathetic imagination as 
a prerequisite to the solution of the problem of 
justice is such an insight into conditions of 
human life as enables one to grasp the causes 
of men's disabilities, failures, disappointments 
and sorrows. I am sure that everyone of you 
thought of the charitable disposition the mo- 
ment I mentioned sympathetic imagination. 
That, indeed, is what I have in mind, but it is 
only part. We Jews, thank God, are charit- 
able, but it is well to be reminded that charity 
is not justice and that benevolence is not right- 
eousness. To apply an understanding heart 
to the condition of "'he poor is to experience 
and live through, as if one were a member of 
their family, the handicaps and the hardships 

[89] 



EECONSTEUCTION 

that beset them at every point. It sometimes 
occurs to me that it is a real luxury to live 
in poverty. It is a luxury to be poor for the 
very simple reason that almost everything that 
the poor man buys costs him more than it 
costs the rich man. If the price of any article 
makes it luxurious, then the price of almost 
every article that the poor man needs and uses 
belongs in the world of luxuries. Does it not 
seem to you that a man actually cannot afford 
to be poor? It costs the poor man much more 
to buy coal than it does the rich, and what is 
true of coal is true of bread and butter, meat 
and clothes and houses and everything else. 
The rich man fills his ample bins with coal in 
April and ]\Iay. He buys in the cheapest mar- 
ket in great quantities ; the poor man buys coal 
by the barrel or bucket, not in April or May 
but beginning with the first frost in November 
and then in December, January and February. 
We wonder why the poor men lose heart and 
hope, why they seek companionship in the 
warm saloons. The ansvv^er may be the price 
of coal, of air and of space. All of these, 
friends, a sympathetic imagination brings out 
clearly and unmistakably. You know, do you 
not, that outside of commercial property, no 

[90] 



EECONSTRUCTION 

real estate pays as well as tenement houses 
and homes in the slum district. Thus the 
poor man pays more for floor space than the 
rich, and when in trouble and forced to get 
professional service, he pays more for what 
legal or medical assistance he requires than 
do others. And so it is that there is hardly a 
phase of his life where the luxury of poverty 
does not force itself upon him. 

Again we say that it is a sympathetic imagi- 
nation that we need. As I walked through the 
streets of the city to get acquainted with my 
new environment, it suddenly came upon me 
that here in this great metropolis of ours that 
boasts of the amount of money that our banks 
handle, which is equal to that of many other 
large cities in this Federal Reserve district, 
three things stand out, — very ugly slum dis- 
tricts, palatial residences and fine churches. 
The suggestion is very clear. Where have the 
churches been and what have they achieved 
and to what uses are men in this community 
putting the great wealth created in part at 
least by the men who live in the slums? You 
put these questions to the leaders of our com- 
munity and especially to the men of the pulpit 
and they shrug their shoulders. Indeed, these 

[91] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

things have not sufficiently occurred to them. 
They have been too busy with guarding the 
Lord's day while the things that sympathetic 
imagination reveals have been created on Mon- 
day, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and the 
rest of the week days. 

The third ingredient is moral will. Having 
found out by the use of intelligence what some 
of the principles of life are and having used 
our sympathetic imagination to penetrate into 
the conditions that control the life of men, 
one more thing is necessary to bring about jus- 
tice and that is moral will. Justice, you will 
remember, is an act; it is not a thought; it is 
not a mere idea ; it is not an abstract proposi- 
tion; it is an action that is the result of in- 
telligent, sympathetic and moral outlooks. Be- 
ing an act, it needs will power to bring it 
about and being an act, moreover, in which 
certain ideals are to be expressed, the will that 
is necessary is a moralized and spiritualized 
will. Justice requires courage; it requires 
self-control; it requires above everything else 
the capacity to make sacrifices. No pious wish- 
ing and no mere talking about what ought to 
be will ever bring a just thing into the world. 
What is indispensable is readiness to pay the 

[92] 



KECONSTRUCTION 

price for the ideal that we profess to believe* 
As soon as the men in authority, men in the 
high places, learn that justice is not a me- 
chanical matter that will automatically be 
brought about by the institution of new meth- 
ods but rather by the consecration of one's 
own will power to human welfare, will sub- 
stantial justice be done in the world. It is 
not an easy task. It is much easier for men in 
the industries to make themselves feel that 
they are being fair to their employees by pay- 
ing the common wage, which turns out for 
the most part to be the minimum wage, than 
to rise to the higher standard of paying the 
uncommon wage in order to be just and fair 
to men and women and children. It is hard, 
too, to rise to such ideas of moral action be- 
cause it needs the courage to face one's own 
colleagues in a particular business. Men do 
not like to be considered different, visionary 
and idealistic, particularly when they are sup- 
posed to be engaged in a practical enterprise. 
They do not like to separate themselves from 
their group interests and group points of view. 
The experience of Henry Ford with his own 
fellow-employers is an outstanding illustration 
of the difficulty in striking out upon a new 

[93] 



KECONSTRUCTION 

and higher path. I well remember with what 
scorn his scheme of higher pay was met by 
other men in like industries. It was a foolish 
thing to pay more than the market required, 
but he went on and a little later the market 
caught up to him, but it takes strength to do 
all this and idealism and a will to be moral. 
Since his day the great question of the mini- 
mum wage has taken on new meaning and we 
have become somewhat ashamed of the old 
significance that was attached to it. The mini- 
mum wage originally meant a wage upon 
which men could live, that is, exist. Now, we 
are beginning to think of the minimum wage 
as a compensation that shall enable a man to 
live as a human being, capable of thought, of 
feeling, of dreaming, of idealizing, of becom- 
ing a personality made in the image of God 
and but a little lower than the angels. 

What, then, is justice? It is the outcome in 
action of a free intelligence combined with a 
sympathetic imagination and with a moral will 
when these are applied to human problems and 
situations. It is as inevitable as night follows 
day that when such use of one's heart and 
one's mind and one's will is made in behalf 
of human beings that the result will be that 

[94] 



RECONSTRUCTION 

which all men will be able to recognize as 

Justice. 

I am glad to say that in thinking of scrip- 
tural lessons for this morning's talk I was im- 
pressed with the wealth of thought and of 
inspiration on this theme that is stored up m 
the Bible. I read you Micah and he is but one 
of the dozens of men in the Bible whose cen- 
tral passion has been for a world in which 
justice is embodied. Justice is the corner-stone 
of our religion. I have but tried to express m 
modern language that which is found in al- 
most every chapter of the Bible. If you and 
I mean anything when we say that we are 
Jews, and when we emphasize the religious 
aspect of our Judaism, then it is for us, each 
one of us in his special field, to think carefully 
and truly and selfsacrificingly about the con- 
ditions that make human adjustment neces- 
cary and reconstruction imperative. We must 
stand ready to contribute out of the stock of 
our knowledge and out of our natural instincts 
and perceptions of moral values those ideas 
and ideals that shall help to bring about a 
better state of society, more humane, more 
righteous, more just. 



[95] 



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